Five Lessons Learned from Watching Die Hard


Some of us can't afford to go to college. We're not all a bunch of champagne-sipping, migrant-worker-hiring John D. Rockefellers. Those of us who may not necessarily be able to pay for things like schooling or clean pants receive our education from the School of Hard Dieing. We may not be able to cure cancer, or repair a spaceship or even read beyond Sunday school-level, but Professor John "Fuck You" McClane, in just four movies, has taught us all we need to know to succeed in life.

#5.
It Is Impossible to Get Fired from the Police Force

NYPD, LAPD, it doesn't matter. We haven't worked out the exact science on this, but there is definitely a direct correlation between throwing Hans Gruber off a building and total immunity. Seriously, you cannot blow up enough buildings, crash enough cars or drink enough booze to ever get fired.

Lesson learned: These four movies have single-handedly informed our decision to leave CRACKED.com and join the police force. As we understand it, we can ignore the orders of our superiors and kill whomever the hell we want every single Christmas and no one will care. Taking out maybe one or two terrorists a year evidently gives us the total freedom to wreck boats, drive cars through helicopters and generally avoid doing any actual police work.

Honestly, in Live Free or Die Hard, an on-duty John McClane just hung around Rutgers terrorizing his daughter's boyfriend for about 20 minutes. Why was he doing that instead of protecting innocent people from deranged stalkers? Shut the fuck up, that's why.

#4.
Every Single German Is a Dick

Go ahead and take a random sample. Pick any one of the German characters who have appeared in a Die Hard film. Really, close your eyes and pick any goddamn one: We guarantee you that he (or she) is a total bastard. And, we're not just looking at one movie: We've got four movies here that span about two decades. That is more than enough evidence. Ten out of 10 German guys that have gotten in McClane's way have been total dicks. It naturally follows that 10 out of 10 German people in the real world are to be mistrusted and shot on sight. Go ahead and try to argue with math, we dare you.

Bonus: With the addition of a handful of evil French bastards in Live Free or Die Hard, just to be safe, we might as well change the category to include all foreigners in general.